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AFM Magazine


Innovations

10 Breakthoughs that brought college football into the 20th Century.
by: Richard Scott
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When Ron Dayne broke the Division I-A record for career rushing yards, we couldn't help but measure him against history. If we have any affinity for college football, we can't help ourselves. We plead for perspective. We beg for a sense of where the current era fits in the historical landscape of college football.

Is Dayne better than Ricky Williams? Herschel Walker? Tony Dorsett? Archie Griffin? O.J. Simpson? Elroy "Crazy Legs" Hirsch? Doc Blanchard and Glenn Davis? Jim Thorpe?

The answer is. . . we'll never really know for sure.That's the problem with history. It's impossible to measure our three-dimensional present accurately against the flat facts of history. Knute Rockne lost only 12 games in 13 years before his untimely death in a plane crash at age 43. Bear Bryant won 323 games. Who was better? Rockne or Bryant? And now that Joe Paterno and Bobby Bowden are bearing down on Bryant's record for Division I-A coaching victories, who is better? Paterno? Bowden? Bryant? Again, we'll never really know for sure.

Yet, history remains the unmistakable flow of water that continues to shape the rock formation of our present age. Its impact on who we are and what we are, and where we are going, is undeniable.

The game we see today bears little resemblance to the first intercollegiate game played between Princeton and Rutgers on November 6, 1869. The uniforms, the equipment, the size and speed of the players, the rules, the tactics and the strategies ... just about the only thing that remains unchanged is the fact that the team with the most points wins the game.Where would Louisiana Tech's high-flying offense and record-setting quarterback Tim Rattay be if the legendary Walter Camp had not ensured the rule changes that made the forward pass a plausible way of moving the football and scoring points? It's no wonder that Camp is still commonly regarded as "the father of modern American football."

And where would Nebraska's I-bone option running game be if the late Don Faurot had not seen football on a basketball court? After observing a two-on-one fastbreak drill, Faurot saw the possibilities in this new "option" football and started pitching the ball off the corner, to the continued chagrin of defenses throughout the game's history.

Where would we be if we were still playing with the rounded, bloated pig's bladder instead of the streamlined, spiral-bound football of today? How about facemasks? Knee braces? Mouth pieces? Game film? Arthroscopic surgery? Regular water breaks?

In the interest of understanding where we are as we approach the year 2000, American Football Monthly has decided to explore the past and mine an entire century of football history to find the 10 most influential and important changes in the last 100 years of college football. Narrowing the list to 10 is sort of like trying to find the best tailgate campus in all of college football, but it's a worthwhile endeavor. We figure it's a win-win proposition, and after all, it's just our opinion.

Here we go, with the order based more on chronology than importance:

1. The forward pass — Football without the forward pass is nothing but rugby, the sport from which football evolved. When the forward pass was introduced in 1905, there were so many restrictions and consequences from using the forward pass that few teams ever attempted to use it. Before 1912, teams weren't allowed to throw more than five yards to either side of the middle of the field. Passes caught in the end zone and incomplete passes were turnovers.All this changed in 1912, with considerable help from Camp's savvy sense of vision. The next year, some guy named Rockne played for the Notre Dame team that used the forward pass to upset Army 35-13. As Notre Dame's head coach, Rockne used the forward pass in an era when most coaches kept the ball close to the ground. And Rockne won with the forward pass, changing the face of the game.

2. Two-platoon football — Until the rules changed to allow two-platoon football, the closest thing to substitution came when coaches inserted an entire lineup into the game. Rockne did it long before other coaches even thought of it. Others coaches, such as LSU's Paul Dietzel and his "Chinese Bandits," found occasional success with platoon substitution.

But the introduction of full-time, two-platoon football changed the game forever. Players were allowed to focus on either defense or offense, and skill players, especially the quarterbacks and running backs, were allowed to specialize on one set of techniques and assignments instead of playing on both sides of the ball.

The use of more players and more frequent substitutions also added more fresh legs to the game, and that brought more speed and stamina. And while the game has fewer legends of mythological dimension, it also has more star attractions.

3. The option — It's making a comeback. . . and with good reason. In the right situation, with the right personnel, the option still works.

But long before its current reincarnation, and even before coaches such as Emory Bellard, Darrell Royal and Bear Bryant were running the wishbone to championship perfection, Faurot was running the option at Missouri. History will argue forever as to the exact origin of the option play, but Faurot was first inspired to line up in the split-T and pitch the ball on the fly after watching those basketball passing drills.

Later, Bud Wilkinson learned his split-T option offense from Faurot when the two served together in pre-flight school during World War II. And, speaking of Wilkinson ...

4. Integration — Wilkinson wasn't the first coach to start recruiting and playing African-American players, but he was one of the best in an era when other coaches were not allowed to sign the same players. Wilkinson's Oklahoma teams rolled off winning streaks of 31 and 47 games, as well as 73 consecutive Big Eight victories.

Can you imagine a world of college football without legendary players such as Griffin, Dorsett, Walker or Bo Jackson? How about Ronnie Lott, Reggie White, Bruce Smith, Oklahoma's Selmon brothers, or Charles Woodson? When three of the top picks in the 1999 NFL draft were used on quarterbacks, two of those quarterbacks — Akili Smith and Donovan McNabb — just happened to be African-American men.Without a doubt, the inclusion of African-American players changed the face and the pace of college football, adding more speed and athleticism to the game. Alabama fans still shake their heads in amazement about the 42-21 whipping Southern Cal and African-American running back Sam "Bam" Cunningham put on Bryant's all-white Crimson Tide in 1970.

That game forced the culture of college football in the Deep South to open its eyes to integration, and Bryant was finally allowed to recruit African-American players. Two years later, the Tide won a national championship and Alabama finished the decade with three national titles.

Those racial barriers, especially those concerning the quarterback position and the head coaching job, continue to fall - slowly but surely.

5. Film study — Paul Brown, the legendary coach of pro football's Cleveland Browns, is generally credited with developing the art of extensive film study, but it didn't take long for film study to become a fact of life in college football.

Today, hardly a day goes by when a college football coach isn't in front of a television monitor, studying film of some kind. He's either evaluating a game or practice film of his own team, exploring the game film of an opponent, learning the ins and outs of a new scheme or hunting for potential recruits.

And it's not just an old black-and-white film reel from the press box, either. It's every desired view, every desired situation, every desired film breakdown option. If a coach wants every third-and-long he can get his hands on, his video coordinator uses a computer system to fill the specific order.

6. The equipment evolution — The next time you see one of those old-timey black-and-white photos of ancient football players, check out the equipment: lumpy cardboard shoulder pads, leather skull caps, baggy padded pants and stiff, clod-hopper cleats. Makes you wonder how anybody ever hit anybody with a full-speed tackle, doesn't it?

Nowadays, we don't wonder why a defensive player slams into a ballcarrier with the explosive force of a super hero. We simply expect to see these players use their helmets, shoulder pads and face masks as weapons of destruction, regardless of the consequences. For better or worse, turning 6-foot-3, 240-pound linebackers with 4.5 speed into guided missiles has made the game faster, more explosive, and ultimately, more violent.

Today's football equipment — from head to toe — is better and safer than ever. But sometimes when you see players with neck injuries leaving the field on stretchers, you've got to wonder if Paterno has a point when he suggests that football would be a better, safer game if we removed the facemasks. The equipment isn't the problem. It's the way we expect players to use the stuff.

7. Title IX — At worst, it was supposed to destroy college football. It hasn't. At the very least, it was supposed to dramatically alter the business of college football. There's no doubt that college football isn't the same game it was when Title IX became law.

Whether that change has been for the better or worse remains a point of debate, but you'd be hard pressed to find a college football coach who is excited about the changes. The pressure to succeed has always been heavy on a head coach, but that pressure has been intensified by the demand to pay the bills for dozens of scholarship sports that can't pay their own way. Winning football teams sell tickets and earn TV and bowl dollars that support the women's sports programs. Losing football teams find new coaches. The pressure to win hasn't been made any easier by the loss of scholarships. Before Title IX, there were no scholarship restrictions. Then the limit was set at 120, then 110, then 95, and in 1992, it was dropped to 85. As if that's not enough, we could see more reductions in the coming years. Those scholarship limitations have given birth to an age of unparalleled parity. There's still a huge abyss separating the No. 1 and No. 114 teams in Division I-A, but the gaps between 10 and 20, 30 and 50, 60 and 90 have never been smaller. A few injuries here, a suspension or two there, and the gap closes even tighter. Many coaches say it's difficult for a team to get emotionally "up" for more than four games per season, and you'd better be talented enough to win the other seven. Those other seven have never been more dangerous for the favorites, and more meaningful for the underdogs. For better or worse, every Saturday is an adventure in college football.

8. Sports medicine — Anyone who has ever seen the road map of zippered scars on the knees of a Joe Namath or a Gale Sayers has to wonder what would have become of their shortened careers if they played in the 1990s.

Instead of simple arthroscopic surgery to reconstruct or repair torn ligaments and cartilage, the players of previous eras went under the knife for major surgery. The Kansas City Chiefs even lost a promising rookie running back named Mack Lee Hill during knee surgery in the 1960s. Now, some linemen are back in the game two weeks after a minor cartilage trim on their knees.

From the surgery to the rehab, doctors and trainers are sending players back on to the field with their bodies and psyches intact. However, surgery isn't the only positive change in the world of sports medicine. Remember when players weren't allowed to drink water? Now they pump themselves full of liquids at scheduled practice intervals and use specialized sports drinks to replace lost fluids.

The evolution of sports medicine has also brought us both sides of the steroid issue. Whether through legal or illegal means, some players will do anything to make themselves bigger and stronger. But legitimate sports medicine also stands on the forefront of prevention, warning players about the dangers of muscle-enhancement drugs.

9. The media — If you're at least 38 years old, you probably remember a day when Saturdays meant just one or two televised college football games followed by Bill Fleming's Sunday morning highlight show.

Now, as long as you've got cable, you can see nearly 10 games a week, starting on Thursday night, starting back again late Saturday morning, and continuing into the early hours of Sunday for those "Left Coast" games. If you've got a satellite dish, you can see everyone from Washington to Miami on most Saturdays. You can also click from one highlight show to another as the TV networks jostle for position in the self-serving spin game TV has created.

Newspapers haven't changed all that much, except perhaps in the intensified investigative reporting and game analysis they apply to today's college football coverage, but radio call-in shows and the Internet have brought college football fans to the forefront of public opinion and the quest for information. In today's new world order, every radio show host or web master is an expert, and every fan can voice his opinion in a public forum. For every journalism professor applauding this use of free speech, there's a coach cringing at the thought of some misguided genius telling him he needs to throw the ball 50 times a game.

No aspect of college football has been more affected by the media than recruiting. It has become a subculture of intrigue and constant speculation, with rumors and pseudo-information ("Bobby Joe Jones is 6-7, 290, benches 600 pounds, runs a 4.6 40 and wants to play tailback in college") bandied about on the Internet, the radio or any number of 900 numbers.

10. The Bowl Alliance/Coalition/Bowl Championship Series — The true impact of these power plays by the powers-that-be in college football will most likely not be felt until the next decade. For now, they've attempted to bring order and purpose to a system that once floundered under a cloud of confusion. Most fans can't even begin to calculate the BCS formula, but they know this: it's designed to put the nation's No. 1 and 2 teams together on the same field for a national championship game.

In the smaller picture, the BCS keeps fans paying attention to all those late-season games that help decide who will play for the national title. In the bigger picture, we can see the major conferences and networks applying their financial stranglehold on the game as the business of college football continues to grow. Despite the increasing parity, the rich will continue to get richer and the poor will wonder how long they can keep funding their men's track and swimming teams.

In all likelihood, we're headed toward some kind of playoff system in Division I-A.

But that's the future. We'll get there soon enough. And we'll probably look back upon this century and marvel how that first Princeton-Rutgers game ever became the game that will be played on Jan. 4, 2000, when two teams play for national championship in the Sugar Bowl.

If anyone has a few extra tickets for sale, we'd like to make an offer. We've got some friends we'd like to invite. Some guys named Camp, Rockne, Faurot, Wilkinson and Bryant. We'd like to get their opinion on the game they shaped.






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